Friday, August 31, 2012

Remember when I went on and on (and ON) about my bike and how much I loved it and how awesome it was to ride it to the park every day and you really wished I would shut up about the stupid bike already? Remember when I suddenly stopped talking it it and you wondered where in the heck all my bike enthusiasm suddenly went?

It didn't really go anywhere, I was forced to quit riding it because of the smoke in the air. There are forest fires all over the place right now and there has been a blanket of smoke in the air for weeks. I thought it would be gone by now, but nope. Still there. They keep telling people with asthma to stay indoors as much as possible and that means me. I haven't been outside all that much lately.

I did buy the bike trainer from my friend and I will get that all hooked up and continue riding in the house this winter. I just need to get the bike computer hooked up to the back wheel instead of the front one because only the back wheel spins on the trainer and I just haven't gotten around to it yet and I can't bear to ride without my beloved bike computer telling me how good (or not so good) I'm doing.

Plus the treadmill is totally working for me right now. Which still shocks me because I was a lifelong treadmill hater and vowed never to change, lol. I still can't believe I like the treadmill, but I do. I think eventually I'll get sick of it and when I do my trusty bike will be there waiting.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

I lost .2 this morning, for a total loss of 14.2. I'm losing it slowly, but at least the scale is headed in the right direction.

Shawn turns 40 on Monday so he decided his present to himself was to take a few days off work. He already had Friday off as a scheduled day off and Monday is already off for the holiday, so he decided to use vacation time for Wednesday and Thursday for an extended break. I love it when he's home. The boys are both in school all day so it's just him and me and Clarissa hanging out at home. Yesterday we had a Criminal Minds marathon in our pajamas and cheated on our diets, lol. Today we're going to act like adults and exercise and stick to the diet and run some errands. Criminal Minds marathon in our pajamas was more fun.:)

I don't know if I mentioned it but we finally got to see my friends new baby!! He is amazing and they are so happy. He's so tiny, I always forget how tiny newborns are. It was so fun to hold him, he's so cute!

We'll get to see him again soon because we're celebrating Shawn's birthday on Saturday with them and our other friends at Shawn's favorite restaurant. I'm looking forward to that!

Nothing else is going on here. The kids are loving school and Clarissa is really exciting about starting preschool in a few weeks. She keeps asking me if it's preschool day. Nope, not yet!

With Shawn home for a few days we'll be doing some fun things this weekend. Hopefully we'll be crossing off some Year Of Adventure activities in the process! Stay tuned for that! :)

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Well, the summer has officially come to an end around here. Josh started his first day of seventh grade today!

He was so nervous last night. He tends to get pretty worked up about changes (sadly he gets that from me) and I could tell that he was pretty nervous last night and this morning. He did fine though, he came home this afternoon with a big smile on his face. His day went great! His friends are in his classes, he loves his teachers and he went on and on about his beloved film making class that he has been waiting all summer for. I think this is going to be a good year!

Monday, August 27, 2012

I've had this polish on for a couple of days but never got around to taking a picture of it, so I thought I'd better get it done before I take it off. It's too pretty not to share!

These nails were a super fun experiment because I actually made my own color! My favorite "natural" color, Essie Sugar Daddy, was running low so while I was at the store I bought a new bottle of it. When I got home I was going to toss the old bottle but then I had an idea!

I figured since I was going to throw it away anyway, maybe I'd have a little fun and see what would happen if I just started mixing colors. So into the almost empty Sugar Daddy bottle I threw in some of my favorite blue, some different pinks, and just for fun I added some gold flake polish. I shook the bottle for several minutes and painted it on my nails and it was STUNNING!! Seriously, the photos don't do it justice. It's amazing. It's a perfect light purply-blue color with gold flecks in it if you get it in the right light. I absolutely adore this color. I'm sure I'll never be able to replicate it again, so I'm going to have to use it sparingly! It's perfect!

So dig through your nail polish stash, find a few polishes you don't want or need anymore and see what happens if you mix them all together! You just might love the result! :)

Forty-five minutes on the treadmill this morning and I have officially lost 14 pounds. Shawn has lost 19 and is really pushing to get to 20 by his 40th birthday next Monday. He'll do it, he's amazing.

Today is the last day of summer vacation for Josh, which means that tomorrow it's back to just me and Clarissa home during the day. I've loved having the boys home all summer but I am looking forward to getting back on a more structured school schedule and it's fun having one on one time with Clarissa. Just us girls doing some shopping and painting our nails. :) Sounds fun to me!

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Hearing about my friends recent adoption experience and about their birth mother has gotten me thinking a lot about Clarissa's adoption and her birth mother, and it prompted me to sit down this afternoon and write her a letter.

We never got to meet Clarissa's birth mother and I don't even know her name or know what she looks like, but we can send letters back and forth through the adoption agency. If you've been a long time follower of my blog you might remember that we actually got a letter and some gifts from her around Clarissa's first birthday, which is actually pretty rare. I don't know very many Korean adoptive families who have heard from their birth mothers.

I hoped that we'd hear from her again, but we haven't, which is OK. I'm comfortable with whatever make the birth mother comfortable.

Anyway, I decided today that it was time to sit down and write her another letter. The letter will go into Clarissa's file at the agency and the birth mother can access it whenever she wants, or not, if she doesn't want to. So sending it doesn't guarantee that she'll read it, but given the fact that she wrote to us, I'm guessing that she's open to some amount of communication.

Writing a letter to her birth mother is extremely hard for me. What do you say to the woman who gave your child life? Thank you doesn't seem sufficient. Then I always feel bad when I'm listing off all the things Clarissa is doing these days because I don't want the birth mother to feel sad that she's missing them. I told her about how much Clarissa loves clothes (she's seriously obsessed with clothes. I'm convinced that she's going to be running Vogue someday, lol) and how she loves to be read to and how she loves her brothers and how much she loves to swim and play in the water. Listing all of those things made me so sad for her birth mother. I'm sad that she's missing out on this amazing little girl, but at the same time so beyond appreciative that she allowed us to experience her.

I've said it before but the hardest thing about adoption for me has always been knowing that our happiness came from someone else's pain. That is something I've struggled with since the first time I laid eyes on Clarissa. I still believe that Clarissa is right where she belongs and I thank my Father in Heaven every single day for sending her to us, but there is still that woman out there somewhere who has to wonder whatever happened to that baby she had to say goodbye to and my heart will always hurt for her. I don't have words to express how much I appreciate her sacrifice and every time I try to write her a letter I don't feel like I can express my appreciation properly, especially because I have no idea how much will get lost in translation.

So mostly I just make sure to let her know that Clarissa is healthy and happy and loved. If one of my children were away from me that's what I'd want to know as a mother. Clarissa is amazing. More than we could ever have possibly hoped for. I love to look back on my blog from before she came home when I wondered what she'd be like. Now I know. She's an energetic princess who loves ponies and all things pink. Who likes to match her shoes with her outfits and notices if anyone is wearing something new. She loves to be read to, loves to sing, loves her brothers and never stops moving. She's slightly stubborn, way too cute for her own good and has us all wrapped around her sweet little finger.

I love that child with all my heart and I will be forever grateful to the amazing woman who gave her life.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Fifty minutes on the treadmill this morning and I lost another .6, for a total loss of 13.8.

Yesterday afternoon I tried the Kettlebell and it was super hillarious and sad, lol. I followed along with an instructional video, or at least I tried. The first part of the video was simply a demonstration of the different moves. They showed how to swing it between your legs, lift it up in the air with one arm, swing it up to your shoulder, etc. I followed along with the demonstration as best I could. By the end I was sweaty and tired.

And then she announced that it was time to actually do the workout. Uhhh...I'm pretty sure I just did. See the sweat and the heavy breathing? Workout complete, see you tomorrow.

So yes, I managed to get through the instructional portion of the video and gave up before the workout actually started. Go me. :) It's OK though. Remember the first day I rode my bike and couldn't make it all the way to the park? The first day I tried the treadmill I thought I was going to have to call 911, lol. The fact that I couldn't make it past the demonstration portion of the kettlebell video sounds about right. Watch me swing that Kettlebell like a pro in a few weeks.

Remember my friend and hew new baby boy? I got to talk to her on the phone for a few minutes yesterday! The birth mother lives several hours from here, so they've traveled there to get the baby. I've seen two super cute pictures of him and I got to hear the details on the phone yesterday. Everything is going great and they may even be coming home with him today. That's super fast! I'm dying to see him in person!

Today Shawn has to work so we don't have a lot going on around here. It has finally stopped being 100 degrees every day around here so maybe we'll go play in the yard for a while. I'm also itching to repaint my nails today. Photos to come, of course. :)

Friday, August 24, 2012

Remember my friend who has been anxiously waiting for their birth mother to go into labor? They're currently at the hospital with their new son, who was born this morning. I'm so ridiculously happy for them I can hardly stand it. My prayers go out to their birth mother and to my friend as they all make the adjustment over the next few days. I can't wait to see him!!!

Let's face it ladies, the best part of exercising is buying cute workout clothes. Am I right? Yes I am.

Today I went shopping for yoga pants. I have a pair of yoga pants that I've had for a few years but rarely wore, but since I've been doing my daily walk on the treadmill I've pulled them out of the closet because they're actually really nice to exercise in. They're really comfortable.

I've been wearing them frequently for the past few weeks and it looks like this treadmill/daily exercise thing is going to stick (who knew?!) so I decided that it was time go to buy more yoga pants.

Remember in June when I went shopping for cycling pants? Shopping for yoga pants is a bit the same. They're great to exercise in but they're fitted in the hips and thighs and they don't hide anything! More fat pants! Yay! :)

I picked out a few pair to try on, one of them I even picked out in a smaller size, because I'm hoping that my current size is going to be too big before long, and I headed to the dressing room. I tried them on...and the smaller pair fit! And you know what? They didn't even look completely hideous! I mean, they didn't look so fantastic that I want to post photos or anything (no one needs to see me in skin tight pants, trust me), but they shockingly did not look completely horrible. I'm not going to wear them to the grocery store or anything, but I'm definitely not in the running for the Most Hideous Woman Ever To Kid Herself By Wearing Yoga Pants award either. Two months ago, I think I would have been a strong contender. :)

I'm not going to lie, I stood in the dressing room and stared at myself for a while while I contemplated this sudden change of events. This is the first time I really noticed a change in my body since I started dieting. It's not a gigantic change or anything. My clothes aren't falling off my body and I didn't recently discover a six pack or anything, but I actually look like I'm getting somewhere with this weight loss. Maybe no one else can tell yet, but for the first time, I can tell. I can actually buy yoga pants and not cringe when I look at myself in the mirror. That's kind of amazing!

Here's the other thing I did today. I bought a kettlebell. A kettlebell is like a big weight with a handle on it and there are a bunch of strength training exercises that you do with it. I'm still super wimpy but I'm going to give it a try. I will let you know how that goes.

And lastly, I can not hear the word kettlebell without thinking of this SNL skit, which actually has nothing to do with kettlebells. Kettlebell just reminds me of cowbell and cowbell reminds me of this skit, which makes me giggle every time. And with that, I will leave you with the video:

Thursday, August 23, 2012

I had some time today to play with my nails, so I took off the colorful french manicure I did the other day. And then I immediately regretted it! I really loved those colorful tips. Of all the manicures I've given myself lately, that one was my favorite. It was simple and fun, I should have kept it on longer. But I took it off and figured since it was off I would try something else.

Deciding what to do next is always hard! I have a billion different colors and there are so many possibilities! After playing around a bit, this is what I came up with. I like it, but I still miss those colorful nails! I have a feeling that I'll be recreating that again soon. :)

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

I couldn't keep the natural look on my nails very long. They needed something! My solution was a colorful take on a french manicure. I like french manicures on other people, but I've tried it a couple of times on myself recently and I don't really love it.

I did 60 minutes on the treadmill this morning! I'm not sure if I've ever exercised for 60 minutes straight in my entire life, lol. That was a whole Criminal Minds episode and the start of another one! :)

I feel really good. Actually, at the moment my legs feel like Jello, but I'm proud of myself. I've come a long way this summer!

My nail experiment was a huge disaster yesterday. Seriously, Google "water marble nails", watch some tutorial videos, give it a try and let me know if you can pull it off. All I managed to do was make a gigantic mess! I enjoyed the attempt, but it wasn't even a little bit successful. After a messy afternoon my nails are currently sporting the natural look, with a coat of light pink you can barely see and a shiny top coat. They needed a break for a few days.

Who am I kidding, we all know I'll be back with more nail pics tomorrow. It's a sickness. :)

Monday, August 20, 2012

I had kind of a rough weekend. My anxiety was back, the heart palpitations were back, and our family had some sort of unfortunate stomach thing going on. I just felt kind of yucky all weekend. Even the treadmill was harder. I forced myself to push through 35 minutes on Saturday and Sunday and it just about killed me both days.

Because I refuse to let my anxiety control me, I got up on Saturday, pushed through the treadmill and thn took the boys to Diary of a Wimpy Kid. They have both loved those books for years and we all get super excited when a new movie comes out. I appreciate kid appropriate movies that aren't too babyish for bigger kids but not to adult for pre-teens. It seems like there just aren't enough movies like that these days. So we go see all the Wimpy Kid movies as soon as they hit theaters, just me and the boys. It has become a fun tradition.

Yesterday we skipped church because the kids had a weird stomach thing and mostly just sat around the house all day. I cheated on my diet because my stomach felt growly and hungry all day and it felt good to eat. I rarely cheat on my diet. I have done awesome staying in my calorie range. Even when we had birthday cake in the house last week I managed to eat it and not go over my allotted calories. But yesterday I just wasn't feeling it. I forced myself to do the treadmill in the morning and that was all the willpower I had in me.

But then I woke up this morning with a different attitiude. I feel a bit better today. I did 45 minutes on the treadmill and even managed to throw a little bit longer run in there than I usually do. I have to keep reminding myself that ups and downs are normal and not to give up when I have a few hard days. It's easy to tell myself that when I'm feeling good, but harder when I'm feeling crappy and it seems like I'm going to feel that way forever.

So I'm back on track and pushing forward. This is Josh's last week home before school starts, so we need to do a little back to school shopping for him and then Friday we're hosting a Back to School Barbeque with some friends. The cabin trip that we've been rescheduling all summer finally got canceled for good, so we turned it into a back to school party instead. Between the forest fires near the cabin and the fact that the family that owns the cabin is sitting by the phone waiting for their birth mother to go into labor, we figured this wasn't the best time for a cabin weekend!

So I'm excited to have those things coming up. Once Josh goes back to school we have another couple of weeks and then Clarissa starts preschool. She's been asking me when preschool starts all summer, so I'm anxious for that to begin! The teacher she was supposed to have just had surgery and can't teach after all, so she has the same teacher she had last year, and we absolutely loved her, so we're looking forward to that.

Today I'm going to try a new nail technique that I've seen and love but have never been able to master. Marble nails. I will come back later with pictures if I can pull it off!

Saturday, August 18, 2012

I took the boys to the new Diary Of a Wimpy Kid movie this morning (super cute, I love those movies!) and then this afternoon I had some free time so I decided to repaint my nails. Again. I know, it's getting ridiculous. :)

The main color is OPI I Have A Herring Problem. It's a beautiful steely grey/blue with some metalic sparkle in it. I planned to just leave it at that, but of course I can't, so a half hour later I went back and put a silver swirl over it.

Today I took Josh over to the school to register for seventh grade. Seventh grade!! I have a child in seventh grade. Weird. I feel like *I* just went to seventh grade a few years ago. (Newsflash, Wendy, it was in 1987).

When I started junior high (no middle school back then) we were the first seventh grade class in the new junior high they had just build. (Incidentally, we were also the first senior class in the new high school they built a few years later.) I was so excited to be starting junior high at the new school with new people. I met the girl who would become my best friend on the first day of school. My last name started with a J and hers started with an H, so the alphabetic seating chart put us together in science.

Here's what was great at junior high. My mom was the school secretary at the other junior high in the district and has access to my schedule and all my records through the shared computer system, so at the beginning of the school year she went in and assigned me a good locker and all the classes I wanted, lol. Although on the downside she knew all my teachers, so I couldn't get away with anything.

I don't really know why we all just took a stroll down my memory lane, but the point is, I registered Josh for seventh grade and it's making me feel old. (Although it's not making me feel nearly as old as the fact that Shawn turns 40 in a few weeks. I'm going to be married to a 40 year old. That means I'm almost 40. How is that possible when junior high was like, yesterday?)

Josh is excited about starting school. He got a crappy locker way at the very end of the hall, but he got the electives he really wanted, so he's super excited about that. He gets to take a filmmaking class, which, if you know Josh, is like the most perfect thing ever. He's been making movies since he was six. He could probably teach a middle school filmmaking class. All he could talk about all summer was how he hoped that he'd get into the filmmaking class. I don't think he cares about anything else, he just wants to get there and take that class! I'm excited for him that he got in. He's extremely creative and will do great. He also wants to get involved in yearbook this year. It's fun to watch his interests and talents develop. I'm excited for him and I hope he has a great year.

That's all the news from our house today. I'm anxious to get the school year underway!

Thursday, August 16, 2012

I lost .4 this morning, for a total of 12.4 pounds lost, and I did 45 minutes on the treadmill. Yay! :) I'm feeling great! I'm really happy with the progress I'm making.

Here is my latest nail creation. I had a really hard time capturing the accurate color of the nail polish in the photo. The color is Essie Merino Cool. It looks a bit purple-y in the photo but it's actually a bit more more brown in person. I love the color, it's one of my very favorites.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

I found Matthew's birth announcement today. It's hard to believe that it's been nine years! Matthew was such a sweet baby and he's just as sweet today.

Matthew's entrance into the world was a scary one. Easily the scariest day of my life. Due to a freak prolapsed cord situation I was rushed into an emergency c-section. They had to knock me out completely and they made Shawn stay out in the hall so neither of us got to witness his birth. Of my three kids, Josh is the only birth we actually got to see! I didn't care though, I was just happy that he was there safe and we had a happy ending to a very scary day.

Matthew has been a happy, mellow kid since the day he was born. He may have given us trouble coming into the world but he sure hasn't given us much trouble since! He's very easy going and adaptable. Whatever we're doing, Matthew is just happy to be along for the ride. He's exactly like Shawn in that way and I admire that trait in both of them. They're not complainers.

Matthew is a very smart kid who taught himself to read at three and has always loved books. A few weeks ago when he was unusually tired during the day he admitted that he stayed up until 2am finishing one of the Harry Potter books. Had I known he was up that late he probably would have been in a bit of trouble, but I have to admit I was a little bit proud of the fact that he couldn't put the book down! I've stayed up many late nights myself finishing a book. It was hard to be too mad at him. I gave him a high five for finishing the book and told him never to stay up that late again, lol.

Matthew absolutely loves school and waits impatiently all summer for school to start back up. He's in the gifted program and loves to learn.

One of the presents we got Matthew for his birthday this year is a bit...different, but something I knew he'd be super excited about. We signed him up for hip hop dance classes! He saw a dance competition on TV recently and was mesmerized by hip hop dance. He's been saying that he wished he could learn how to dance like that. The other day I saw a Groupon for dance classes and knew it would be the perfect gift for him. It's a class just for boys ages 6-12 and it's really close to our house, so it will be perfect. It's just a six week class, but he's really excited about it! We have a dance Wii game and he's surprisingly good at it. It takes the rest of us forever to pick up the steps but he gets it pretty quickly. I'll be interested to see how he does in the dance class. It starts in a few weeks.

Matthew is a funny kid. The other day he told me that his two goals in life are never to break a bone and to never get dentures. I've been chuckling about that all week. I told him that those were good goals and to remember to be careful and remember to floss. :)

For our kids birthdays we let them pick their favorite meal for dinner. Yesterday I told Matthew that he could pick anything he wanted for tonight. I would make him anything he wanted or we could go out somewhere. He thought about it for a while and decided that he wanted to go to Burger King, lol. That would not have been my first choice, but he was in charge, so this evening we packed up and headed over to Burger King. :)

Now he's busy playing the Wii game that he got for his birthday. We don't normally let the kids play Wii on school nights but he's been waiting for this game for ages (Lego Batman 2) and I didn't have the heart to tell him that he had to wait until Saturday to play it. It's good to get a little spoiled on your birthday. :)

Matthew is a great kid and I'm proud to be his mom. I love to watch him learn and grow and I'm proud of the person he is becoming. It's always a little sad to watch your kids get older but I'm excited to see what is ahead for him in his life.

And I truly hope that he never breaks a bone and never needs to get dentures. :)

Yesterday I mentioned that I was hoping to buy a bike trainer in the next few months. Shortly after I made the post, my friend Karen called to tell me she was was selling hers and she brought it over last night. I'm going to try it out a little more today but I think it will work. I'm excited to be able to ride my bike on bad weather days!

Today is Matthews birthday! I'm going to make a seperate post about that later. Stay tuned!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

I went 45 minutes on the treadmill this morning and even jogged twice! That's my longest and fastest so far. I felt really great today. I wore my heart monitor to see how my heart is doing and my max heart rate is lower than it was before, even at a faster pace, and it recovered quicker when I quit. That means my heart is getting healthier along with the rest of me.

I took a break from my bike last week because I was getting a bit burned out and discouraged and I think it really helped to switch to the treadmill for a little bit. I felt like I wasn't improving fast enough on the bike but I'm seeing big improvement on the treadmill which I think will help when I get back on my bike. I actually planned to start biking again today but the air quality here is awful and they're telling people with asthma to stay in the house.

Boise is in a valley which is like a big punch bowl with mountains all around. When there are fires, even far away, the wind brings the smoke in and it all settles in the valley and won't leave. There are fires all over the place right now and it's really hazy and smokey outside. You can smell it in the air. A bike ride in that would trigger an asthma attack of epic proportions, so I'm sticking with the treadmill until the smoke clears. I'm actually not hating the treadmill so much these days (ok, I admit it, I kind of like it!), so I'm fine sticking with that for now.

My plan is to eventually buy a bike trainer, which is a stand that you put your bike on so that you can ride it in the house. It allows you to keep training on your regular bike all winter, which will be great, because I don't want to put my bike away when the weather gets cold. I have an exercise bike but it feels completely different than my real bike. I want to keep training on my real bike as much as I can. It won't be nearly as fun in the house, but it's better than nothing. I've been researching bike trainers and I think I'm going to buy one in the next month or two. I'm still searching for the best deal.

Tomorrow is Matthews birthday so today we're wrapping presents, getting the cake and getting ready to celebrate our sweet 9 year old tomorrow. I can't believe he's going to be 9! He's really excited for his birthday and has been trying to get me to tell him what his presents are all week. For his birthday activity I'm taking him and Josh to see the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie. We've all been waiting impatiently for it to come out. I have to admit that I enjoy those movies as much as they do! We may not go tomorrow though, I'm thinking we might wait and go on Saturday. Since it's a school night tomorrow we'll probably take Matthew out to eat and have cake. I'm going to have to do some serious work on the treadmill tomorrow to earn enough calories for birthday cake!! :)

Sunday, August 12, 2012

I have difficult hair. I've had difficult hair my entire life. It's super super extra thick (the lady that cuts my hair says I have the thickest hair she's ever seen) and it's wavy in all the wrong places. When I was a kid my hair was huge and frizzy and unmanageable and I had no idea what to do with it. When I was in 7th grade I got teased for having weird hair and it traumatized me for life, lol. I didn't want to have weird hair, I just had no idea what to do with it. My early teen years were all just one big long bad hair day. I was already way taller than anyone my age, super skinny, with braces and big glasses. I was awkward enough without the bad hair.

By high school I discovered chemical hair straightening and my life got much better! I had it chemically straightened for a few years and eventually started straightening it with a round brush and a hair dryer and I've done that ever since. For the past 20 or so years, every single time I wash my hair it involves a really long process to straighten it. Straightening cream, a round brush, 20 minutes with the blow dryer and 10 more minute with the flat iron. I live in fear of my hair getting wet during the day because then I'll have to go start over with the whole straightening process to fix it. I hate it, but on the inside I'm still that 7th grader who is afraid of being teased for having bad hair, so I'm weirdly picky about my hair.

So between the fact that I'm a creature of habit and I'm picky about my hair being straight, my hair doesn't change much. It occasionally changes length, but it always basically looks exactly the same. I continue to go through the same pain in the butt hair straightening ritual every single day. The same stylist has been cutting my hair for 11 years and I won't let anyone else touch it. At this point I pretty much just sit down in the chair and she knows exactly what to do.

So then two nights ago I washed my hair before I went to bed, which I don't normally do. If I do wash my hair before I go to bed and sleep on it wet I have to rewash it in the morning so I can dry it and re-straighten it. But the other night when I washed it before I went to bed I decided to put it in two french braids (still wet) just to keep it out of the way while I slept.

I woke up in the morning, took the french braids out, ran my fingers through my hair and it was amazing! I had perfectly wavy hair. I've never been able to wake up in the morning and have great hair without a lot of work. I've also never had curly or wavy hair that didn't look ridiculous. My hair just doesn't do curly well. It's too thick and unmanageable. I thought I was destined to go through the long and complicated daily straightening process forever.

I thought the french braid trick was a fluke so I tried it again last night. I washed my hair before I went to bed and while it was still wet I put it in two french braids. This morning I woke up, took the braids out, ran my fingers through my hair, pulled one side back with two bobby pins and voila, cute hair that took literally five minutes at the most. I'm super excited to have an easy hair option that is different than my normal boring straight hair.

I had Josh help me take a picture of it. I generally prefer to be behind the camera, but I had to document this because I still can't believe that my hair is curly and doesn't look ridiculous. Take that, 7th grade mean girls.:)

Saturday, August 11, 2012

My Rainbow Fish nails were appropriate for our trip to the aquarium this morning (see post below), but when we got home from the aquarium I decided to try something different.

I actually started with a whole different plan. I came across a blog yesterday (nailside.blogspot.com) that has some really cool tutorials for stripes and zigzags done with tape. She made it look really easy, but it wasn't, lol. I made a mess and gave up. I'm going to keep practicing, but in the meantime I decided to go a whole different direction and I ended up with what I call my safari nails. It's a bit zebra stripe/camouflage-ish. Maybe camouflage zebra would have been a better name for this creation!

I wasn't sure about it as I was doing it but I got it all done and I love it. It's totally me. I used China Glaze Elephant walk again for the main color. It's one of my new favorite colors for my nails. I might even keep this one on for longer than 24 hours! :)

This is one case where I think it actually looks better in person than in the pictures. I sometime use a magnifying filter on my camera to get a good closeup but sometimes so much magnification isn't a good thing. You can see every tiny flaw that isn't so glaringly obvious when you're looking at the actual nails! Anyway, I like it. It feels like me. I think safari nails are a keeper. :)

We had a fun morning at the aquarium! Boise only recently got an aquarium, and as far as aquariums go, its really not super awesome, but it's a fun enough activity to do on a Saturday morning. It's located in a bit of an awkward spot, on a busy corner next to a bail bonds office, but we'll take what we can get. I admit that I'm still slightly bitter because when the originally announced that they were building an aquarium in Boise the location they originally announced was around the corner from my house, near where the new park is. I was bummed when they not only decided to move it to a weird location, but it's a really scaled down version of what they originally said it was going to be. I'll stop pouting about my shattered dreams now. It's all good. lol

Anyway, it's better than having no aquarium, but not nearly as cool as some that I've been to in coastal cities, like the Oregon aquarium in Newport. Now THAT is a cool aquarium.

If you're going to go to the aquarium, the best time to go is right when they open at 10am because you can buy food to feed the fish and the birds and they quit being hungry by about 10:30 when they've all been fed.

Feeding the animals is the best part of the aquarium, in my opinion. It's really the best thing the aquarium has going for it. You can stick you hands in the water and pet the stingrays and the little sharks and if they're hungry they'll eat right out of your hand. Super cool! Unfortunately, what they eat is cut up raw fish pieces, so you you have to dig around in a cup of disgusting fish pieces in order to feed them. Still worth it. The sting rays are super friendly and come right up to the edge of the tank and let you touch them. It's pretty cool!

There is also a pool of tropical fish that eat seaweed and for a couple of dollars they'll give you little sheets of seaweed that you tear up and dangle in the water for the fish to eat. Those fish aren't nearly as friendly as the stingrays and it takes a little work to get them to eat out of your hand, but it's pretty entertaining to try! The kids had a good time dangling the seaweed in the water and waiting for a fish to swim up to them.

The newest exhibit is a bird enclosure that you can walk into and they'll give you a cup of liquid that has birdseed floating in it that the birds eat. I absolutely love birds, so any time I get the chance to feed them I'm totally in! That was my favorite part of our aquarium adventure. I could have hung out in there for quite a while.

And really, that's all the cool highlights of the aquarium. It's pretty small and feels pretty low budget. It's worth going to stick your hands in the water and interact with the fish and it's super fun to feed the birds if you like birds as much as I do, but other than that, there are some fish tanks you can look at, a very small educational area and that's pretty much it. They have big plans to add more exhibits, but I don't know when, or if, that's going to happen.

The kids liked it though, and that's what matters. They spent a lot of time petting the stingrays and the little sharks. It wasn't a bad way to kill a few hours this morning! We actually got a season pass on Groupon for a really reasonable price, so we can go back all year for free. I would definitely go back to feed the birds again and the kids would happily go back and play with the stingrays. It may not be the fanciest aquarium in the world, but it was definitely an entertaining adventure. :)

Friday, August 10, 2012

This was only a semi-successful nail technique experiment. I may only wear it for two hours and decide I hate it and take it all off and try something else, but I thought I'd take a picture of it first.

One of my favorite nail polish techniques is gradient nails. That's when you blend multiple colors so that it's a different color at the tip than it is at the bottom. When it's done right it's absolutely beautiful. I've been trying to pull it off for a week and I haven't knocked it out of the park yet. It actually looks really simple, you basically just use a sponge and carefully sponge the colors on. It's trickier than it looks though. I can never get it to blend as seamlessly as I've seen it done online.

So I tried it again today and go so-so results. I love the colors I used. The bottom is a Zoya color called Zuza and the top color is a China Glaze color called Grape Juice. They look great together and make a beautiful blend. On a couple of my fingers I pulled it off pretty well, but others didn't blend as well. I need more practice.

Since I didn't love my gradient job I decided to camouflage my mistakes a bit with a nail stamp. I chose this one because it reminds me of fish scales and I thought it would go well with the colors. The polish has a bit of a metallic sparkle to it that's hard to see in the picture. The whole thing has a big of a Rainbow Fish vibe, lol. I considered painting in a few sparkly scales, but then I realized that I was getting carried away. (Who, me?)

Anyway, the result is interesting but not perfect. It's kind of cool looking, I guess. I'll live with it for a bit before I decide if I like it or not.

As of today I have officially been dieting for six weeks. I lost another .4 this morning, which officially brings my weight loss to 11 pounds total. That's an average of 1.8 pounds a week, which I'm happy with!

I'm proud of myself for sticking with it for six weeks! I don't usually get past about two or three, lol. MyFitnessPal is working really great for me, I highly reccomend it if you're trying to lose weight! It's also helping that Shawn is dieting with me so we're logging everything together. Shawn has lost almost 14 pounds. He doesn't have a lot more to lose though so he's going to be done before I am. I'll be a little bummed when we're not doing it together anymore, although he said that he's still going to log his food. Even if you're not dieting it's really helpful to pay attention to what you're eating. After all this work neither of us want to gain back the weight!Dieting was hard for a few weeks but for the most part it's not that bad anymore. The cravings I had a first are gone and I don't feel constantly hungry. My body has adjusted to eating less food and I find that I don't have the urge to poke through the fridge when I'm bored like I used to. I plan out my food ahead of time, I keep the fridge stocked with healthy choices and I'm really doing pretty good. The hardest part about dieting is just getting started. We're in the zone now. :)

Thursday, August 9, 2012

I lost just under half a pound this morning, which means that I'm officially back on the weight loss train. Finally! I'm now down 10.6 pounds.

One more half pound loss and I'll be 11 pounds down and officially be looking at a different second number on the scale. Does that make sense? I don't really want to announce my weight (it's too depressing), but I'm at a 1?0.4. So another small loss and I'll be down to the next ten. That's actually what my weight hovered at for a long time, the 10 pounds I just lost was 10 pounds I only recently gained, so I'm really only about to hit the depressing weight that I already was before I gained the 10 pounds. I'm SUPER glad to have lost the 10 pounds I just lost, but I'm just entering numbers I was already unhappy with, so I have a ways to go.

I actually don't know how many pounds I intend to lose total. I'm purposely not setting a long term goal, only short term ones. I'm just focusing on exercise and better eating and whatever weight loss results from that is awesome. I know how much I'd like to eventually lose, but I'm not focusing on a final number, I'm focusing on getting healthy. The reason that attitude is working for me is because in the past I was so focused on the number on the scale that as soon as it quit moving I gave up. If weight loss was the only goal and I didn't lose weight, what was the point?

This time I'm looking at it differently. I'm tracking my improvement in so many different areas. Do I feel better? Are my muscles stronger? Am I eating better? Can I walk faster, farther and longer? Is my asthma better? Do I have more energy? All of those things are so much more important to me than the number on the scale and I celebrate all of those victories. Those are the victories that keep me pushing through when the number on the scale doesn't move and I think that's going to be the key to my success this time around. I won't lie, I do care about the number on the scale, but I also care about being happy and healthy and if improvement in those areas is considered a success then I'm doing awesome! The weight loss will come. Maybe more slowly than I want, but it will come.

Today I did 42 minutes on the treadmill. The reason 40ish minutes is significant it's because that's how long an episode of Criminal Minds is, which is what I watch on my Ipad while I walk! My goal every day is to make it through a whole episode without stopping. I'm in season two, so I still have a lot more walking to do to get through the whole series! Criminal Minds is really good, it's s drama series about FBI profilers and how they solve crimes. It's interesting enough to keep my attention so I'm not looking at the clock every five seconds. I really have to push myself to go the whole 40ish minutes, but I'm always really proud of myself when I make it. I'm even throwing in some short periods of jogging every day now. I hope that I'm eventually jogging through a whole episode of Criminal Minds. Maybe I'll jog though the final season. :)

In other news, things are going good around here. We're not going to the cabin this weekend like we had planned. There are forest fires up there right now so we decided to give it a week for things to settle down and we're hoping to go up next weekend. But the friends that own the cabin are also the friends that just found out that they've been chosen to adopt a baby and the baby is due in a few weeks, so while I'm looking forward to a cabin weekend next weekend, I'll definitely be OK if the cabin trip is cancelled so they can go meet their new baby! I'm dying for that baby to get here!

So all in all, life is good here. I'm losing weight, feeling good, Matthew is back to school and loving it, big baby news is happening soon and we just keep on pushing forward!

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Forty minutes on the treadmill today, plus I lost two pounds this morning. Granted, it's just the two pounds I somehow managed to gain last week, so I'm back down to the same 10.2 total pounds lost from before, but I'll take what I can get.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

I just walked on the treadmill for 42 minutes and I did it at a higher speed than I've ever gone before! I know that's no amazing feat, but to me it's huge! I couldn't make it 15 minutes on the treadmill two months ago. I tried to do couch to 5K last year and had an asthma attack so bad that I practically had to go to the hospital after 10 minutes, lol. I made it one day and gave up. Even a couple of weeks ago I was really pushing to do 30 minutes.

So 42 minutes feels like a marathon to me. It feels like a huge victory. It's proof to myself that I'm making progress and that I'm getting stronger. Even if the weight refuses to budge, I have proof to myself that my hard work is paying off.

I hate being out of shape. It's actually a bit embarrassing to announce some of my personal victories that I know really aren't that impressive and only show how out of shape I really am, but blogging about it is what's pushing me to keep going. I know 42 minutes on a treadmill at not even a jogging pace is nothing to brag about, but when it's so much better than what I could have done before it feels really great. I'm proud of me! :)

The first day of school has arrived! Matthew was so excited that he couldn't sleep last night. He came into our room at midnight and said that he was still awake and couldn't go to sleep! He did eventually go to sleep, but I hope he's not too tired today. Going back to school is a bummer for some kids, but Matthew waits impatiently all summer for school to start again. He absolutely loves it.

I was slightly sad and slightly amused this morning when, for the first year ever, Matthew didn't want me to take him to school on the first day. It's a sign of growing up and I get it, but I was a little sad that he didn't want me to take him to school and walk to his class with him. We met his teacher yesterday and dropped off his school supplies, so he knows where to go and will be just fine without me. It's sad to watch them grow up and not need you so much anymore though!

He'll do great. I can always count on Matthew to have a positive attitude and tackle new situations with no problem. That kid is very calm, cool and collected at all times. Nothing really rattles him too much, he'll be just fine.

Here are the photos I took of him this morning. We have a tradition of taking the kids picture every year on the first day of school and adding it to our collage so we can see how they've grown. It's always a little bittersweet looking at the new photo every year and comparing it to previous years. They grow up too darn fast!

Monday, August 6, 2012

Tonight our good friends came over to announce that after an extremely long wait, they have been chosen by a birth mother and are expecting a baby boy in a few weeks. I'm laying here trying to go to bed but I'm literally so excited for them that I can't settle down and go to sleep! My heart has broken for them the past several years, watching them struggle with infertility and then struggle to adopt. They're the most amazing people and deserve amazing things and they've had a lot of disappointment over the past few years. The birth mother who has chosen them sounds amazing and I think they're finally in for some much deserved joy in their lives. I couldn't be more thrilled for them! I'm blogging about it to resist the urge to call her one the phone right now and squeal like a little kid, lol. The baby is due the first part of September, so I'm excited to help plan a baby shower and help her get ready for their new addition. This evening we went over to Matthews school to meet his teacher and get the bus info. The teacher seems great, the bus stop still sucks. Bleh. Tomorrow I will be taking the annual first day of school photos! I'll post them after I get Matthew off to school. Lots of exciting things happening these days!

There have definitely been highs and lows on this weight loss/get in shape journey and at the moment I'm at a bit of a low. I'm exercising and carefully logging every bite of food that goes into my mouth and I've gained almost two pounds this week. It's probably water weight or new muscle or something, at least that's what I keep telling myself, but it's still discouraging.

Then I went on my bike ride this morning and I so wasn't into it. My heart was racing, my lungs were on fire and I really just wanted to go home. So I did. I did 3.5 miles and gave up. Super awesome.

I know highs and lows like this are normal. Sometimes you lose and feel great and sometimes you don't and feel discouraged. I know that this low point will pass and the weight will start coming off again and the exercise will start getting easier. I just want it to hurry up, lol. I want to skip this part and get to the good part.

I may give the bike a break for a couple of days and stick with the treadmill. I don't want to burn myself out on my bike. Maybe if I shake it up a bit and do something different for a few days I'll be able to go back to it with a better attitude.

It is times like this in the past that I probably would have just given up completely. When I've dieted in the past I do great for a bit and then don't lose for a short time and just say screw it and eat cake, lol. Not this time. I'm going to keep going no matter what the scale says. I know that diet and exercise is good for my body no matter what the scale says, so I'm going to keep at it even when it gets discouraging. I'll keep logging the food and getting the exercise in. I might complain about it but I'll do it. :)

So that's where I am in my journey. I'm hanging in there, but barely. It will get better.

Tomorrow is Matthews first day of school, which I'm excited about. Tonight we get to go over to the school, meet his teacher, drop off his school supplies, figure out the bus schedule and all of that. For the past two years Matthew has had a really inconvienent bus stop that drives me crazy and I'm hoping and praying that this is the year they change it. They probably won't but I'm anxious to go over there tonight and see if by some miracle he's not going to have to cross a very busy street with no crosswalk to get to his bus stop. I've been driving him to the bus stop for two years so that he doesn't have to play Frogger with the traffic. Does that seem stupid to anyone else? We took it up with the school. They don't care. Don't get me started.

The other thing I'm looking forward to this week is that this weekend is our cabin trip with our friends. We usually do it in June but we had to move it and this weekend it's finally here. This is the trip we do every year with the two families that we're good friends with. We all look forward to it all year. A few days in the mountains with friends is just what I need right now!

Then next week is Matthews birthday and in a few more weeks Shawn turns 40. I will definitely have more to say about that in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. :)

Sunday, August 5, 2012

I bought this polish the other day and used it today for the first time. I kind of love it! It's called Elephant Walk. To me it reminds me of the color of a chalkboard. Kind of a greenish grey. It's funny because before I grew out my fingernails I only ever used to paint my toenails and I love reds and pinks for my toes. When I started painting my fingernails I tried reds and pinks and I don't really like it at all. I'm much more drawn to blues and greens and darker colors for my fingers. I actually painted my fingernails pink this afternoon and took it all off and started over with this green color. It feels more like me.

Just for fun I sponged some gold sparkle onto the tips. I like doing that, as you can probably tell. Solid color nails are boring. I like something unexpected to brighten them up a bit.

I tried to take pictures and had a hard time accurately capturing the color and the sparkle. Taking pictures of your fingernails is super tricky. I'm left handed so generally my right hand turns out slightly better because I have more control when I paint with my left hand. So I prefer to take a picture of my right hand, but usually my right hand is the one that controls that camera when I'm taking pictures and but you can't operate the camera and take a picture of your hand at the same time. I have to contort on all sorts of weird ways to take them with my left hand. I could just take a picture of my left hand I suppose, but where's the fun in that? :)

Anyway, here are the photos. The first picture was technically a better photo but didn't capture the sparkle very well. The second one isn't so great but you can see the sparkly tips. You get the idea.

Friday, August 3, 2012

It's me again with the nails! It's been two whole hours since I posted about my nails, did you miss me? :) Someone in my comments asked about the nail art I use and asked me to take pictures. (I swear, someone did! Go look!) Pictures of my nail art, you say?! Yay! :)

OK, so first you've got to get yourself a giganto case full of more nail polish than any person needs.

That thing is huge and weighs a ton. Once upon a time it was super organized. Then I bought too much nail polish and gave up. I just toss it all in there. GENTLY, because if you're not gentle you shatter the bottle, get glass in your bed, slice your foot open and then you can't ride your bike and that sucks.

I have no idea how many bottles of nail polish I own. I'm pretty sure the number is embarrassing and even if I did know I wouldn't tell you.

Next you need to buy approximately eight hundred thousand of these:

Those are nail art plates. They're little metal plates with designs in them. They're the pattern you use for nail art. The "real" brand is Konad. I usually buy a brand called Mash. Same stuff. Cheaper. I like cheaper. I order them from Amazon. You can get a whole crapload of them for like $11. Search for Mash plates. Or Konad plates, but trust me, Mash is cheaper.

Next you choose which design you want and put the plate on this thing:

You can't tell in the picture but that pink thing has a round cut out in it that you sit the plate in. You should probably clean off the old nail polish before you take photos and share them on your blog. Gross.

Next you decide which color of nail polish you want the design to be and paint it over the design like this:

Paint it on thick. Also, if you're really smart you should do all of this on the new fancy duvet that you just bought for your bed because fingernail polish on your fancy new bedding is awesome. (I didn't get nail polish on my fancy new duvet, thank goodness, but it did just occur to me how stupid it was to take all of the pictures on my bed, lol.)

Next, you use a plastic scrapey thing with a metal edge to scrape off the excess polish:

You can buy all these supplies on Amazon. Search for Konad nail stamps and it should all come up. It's pretty inexpensive.

What you're left with after you scrape off the excess polish is polish that it all nicely settled down into the groove of the design on the plate. You have to work quickly at this point because it dries quickly.

Now you need to transfer the design to the stamp. The stamp is a plastic handle with a piece of rubber on each end. Press the rubber down onto the plate and the polish will transfer to the stamp. Like I said, work quickly because it dries quickly and if it dries before you get it transferred to the stamp you're going to have to clean off the plate and start over. That happens to me all the time. I go through more nail polish remover than any sane person really should.

Here's what it looks like on the stamp:

Check to make sure that the whole image transferred to the stamp and then roll the stamp across your fingernail. If everything goes according to plan you now have a super cool design on your fingernail!

Clean the nail polish off the stamp and plate, repeat nine more times and cover with a clear top coat to protect it. I reccomend Seche Vite, which is the best top coat ever.

A note about nail polish. Konad sells what they call "Special Polish", which is what you're technically supposed to use to stamp the designs. It's thicker than regular polish so it's supposed to make a heavier, clearer design. For a long time I stupidly thought you HAD to use it (because they said so!) so I bought several colors of their fancy special polish to stamp the designs.

I have since found out that you really don't have to use their special polish. I don't like their polish because there are limited colors and it's expensive. You will get varied results with regular nail polish but I've found plenty of regular polish that will work. I use OPI and Essie polish to stamp all the time and I've used other brands as well. Thicker polish works better, but I've had luck with all sorts of different polish. I got a tip from somewhere online that if you're going to use regular nail polish, run a fingernail file over the rubber tip a couple of times and rough it up slightly. It makes the polish stick better. I don't know if that's necessary but I usually do it anyway. I just experiment and play around with different polishes to see what works.

Nail stamping is really fun and pretty inexpensive. Everything you need can be found on Amazon. I haven't ever seen the supplies in regular stores aside from a Konad kiosk in our mall that isn't there anymore, but you might be able to find them at a beauty supply store or something. I haven't looked very hard, Amazon is just easier.

I swore I wasn't going to talk about my nails for a few days. Has it been a few days? Close enough. :)

I debated whether or not to post my latest nail creation, because honestly, it's not super great. It's fine but the pattern didn't turn out as perfect as I hoped it would and I'm kind of a perfectionist about it.

The reason that I decided to post it anyway is because I'm so ridiculously crazy about the color that I have to talk about it! We went school shopping last night and I wandered past the nail polish and couldn't resist stopping to look. I'm always on the look out for unique colors. And then I saw this one and literally gasped. The polish is Sally Hansen Pacific Blue. I LOVE this color. I think everything in the world should be this color. I don't know what exactly it is that attracts me to it so much, but just looking at it makes me happy.

I put it on my nails today and fell in love. It's such a great blue and I thought it would look great with bright white flowers. It does but unfortunately the flowers ended up looking slightly smeary and not nearly as crisp as I hoped they would. (the glare from the window in the picture doesn't help. It's not a great picture.) It looks fine I guess, just not as awesome as I hoped it would. I also go the wild idea of putting a little dot of sparkly blue/green polish in the center of the flowers and that was kind of a failed experiment. I saw someone do it once and it looked cool. Not so much when I did it. Story of my life, actually. :)

I considered taking it all off and trying again, but eh, chances are I'm going to take it off in two days and try something else anyway. I'll keep it around for now. The blue is still so pretty to look at that I love it, smeary flowers and all. :)

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. That would be me. :) Do you ever have one of those days where everything irritates the crap out of you for no good reason? I'm having one of those days. My weight was up slightly this morning, like not even a pound which is so no big deal, but you would think that it went up 40 pounds overnight for as much as it bugged me. Then I went on my bike ride and the wind was blowing a bit, which adds extra resistance when I ride, which, when you're as wimpy as me is extra resistance I don't need. It was barely blowing but it might as well have been a hurricane for as much as it irritated me.

I came home and the little bottles of protein chocolate milk I drink after my ride were gone and we only had the big ones and I have to measure 8 ounces out of the big ones and I couldn't find the measuring cup. No major crisis. Bugged the crap out of me.

I've been that way all morning. I know it's ridiculous and irrational. On a normal day none of those things would bug me. Today, they all bug me. It will pass. I'm only writing it down because it will amuse me tomorrow when I'm in a better mood, lol.

Last night we got the school shopping done for Matthew to start school next week. Every year when I do the back to school shopping and I'm standing there in the notebook and folder aisle I think to myself "didn't we JUST do this?!". I think the same thing when I get the Christmas decorations out every year. Didn't we just have Christmas like, a month ago? I get slightly panicky in moments like that because life is flying by to quickly. I want to hit the pause button for a minute. Matthew is in fourth grade this year and Josh is in seventh grade. Seventh grade! I still remember when I was in seventh grade like it was yesterday. How is it possible that I have a child in seventh grade?! I don't want life to go by so quickly.

But it is what it is and I'm excited about getting the kids ready to start school. We've had a fun summer but I'm kind of anxious to get back on the more structured school year schedule. Clarissa starts preschool two mornings a week in September, which means for the first time in three years I will be home alone again for part of the day. That will feel weird! It will just be for a couple of hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays but I'm looking forward to a little free time. When Matthew was in preschool I used to drop him off and then go over to Barnes and Noble and look through the books and drink hot chocolate. It was heaven. :) I don't know what I'll do when Clarissa is at preschool. Until it starts getting cold I'll probably just use that time to take my bike ride because it's going to be trickier to go in the mornings once I'm busy getting kids off to school. It would be fun to pack up my bike and take Greenbelt rides after I drop her off. The possibilities are endless!

I say I'm excited now but I'm totally going to be the mom crying in the car after I drop her off at preschool for the first time. In theory I like having time away from the kids. In reality I miss them to pieces when they're not around.

Ok, so now I'm going to go get some stuff done, try to stop being so irrationally irritated and then I'm going to paint my nails. I just got a new color last night that I'm dying to play with! Pictures later if it looks good! :)

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Today I finally hit 200 miles on my bike. It was funny, I finished my ride and came in the house and checked my stats and I was at 199. The mileage counter doesn't show partial miles, but I was pretty sure that I was actually less than a mile away, so hot and sweaty and tired I went back outside and hopped back on my bike and rode it down to the end of the street and back. I wasn't about to call it a day at 199, lol.

I pulled back into the driveway, checked my stats and I was officially at 200. I read in an article that Kristen Armstrong rode 500 miles a week to train for the Olympics. I did 200 in a month a half. :) So OK, I'm never going to make it to the Olympics, but I'm still proud of my 200 miles.

I've also started walking on the treadmill in the evenings. Me, who swore my hatred of all exercise equipment on this blog a few weeks ago. I still pretty much hate it, but I'm desperate to get back in shape and it feels good to exercise. I take my iPad down there and watch TV shows while I walk, so it's not so bad.

It's funny, I always heard people say that they craved exercise or that they really loved to work out and I thought those people were a big bunch of liars, lol. I've craved many things in my life (mostly of the chocolate variety) but exercise was never one of them. But now (and someone take note that I said this, because I've never said it before and may never say it again) I think I might just actually crave exercise. I kind of almost...like it. I have two theories on this. Either I have a massive brain tumor that has completely changed my personality or all the dieting and morning bike rides are turning me into one of those energetic healthy people you always read about. I had an identity crisis on the treadmill last night when I realized that I was breathing hard and sweaty and wasn't cranky about it, lol.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still overweight and incredibly out of shape, and I get sweaty and breathe hard when the treadmill is at 2.5 miles an hour, but I'm doing it! I'm making progress and no one is more amazed by it than me. :)

About Me

My name is Wendy and I'm a stay at home mom to three great kids. I'm also a full time college student, working towards an eventual master’s degree in marriage and family counseling. We brought our youngest child home from South Korea in October 2009, which was the inspiration for this blog. I love to read, I love photography, I love to talk about international adoption and I love all things Korean!